Re: Fretboard radius and scalloping
The problem with compound fretboard radius is that although the fretboard might be to spec the frets usually are not. Many of these fretted board have areas on the board where the frets are overbent, a little higher in the middle, in areas around fret12-16 or something. That makes the compound radius be slightly un-compounded.
You can't easily correct it either since there's no way to do a radius sanding.
Just because Stew Mac and Luthier´s Merc don`t sell a "Cheater tool" for it doesn´t mean it can´t be done.. it just means you need a pro. This is where knowing how to do fret dressing the old school way comes in...a shortened bastard file follows the fretboards curvature exactly, regardless of any radius changes, unlike a block or even worse radius block.. This allows for perfect dressing even on a compound radius board
MusiKraft also has 6 different compound radii.
You can't tell me that somebody pre-bends each individual fret to whatever the proper radius at the specific position given a specific fretboard is. Suhr, maybe. The others, no way.
Plus, I understand the fingerboard radius comes out of a CNC, but what about the sanding? Must be free-hand, right?
Last but not least, what do owners of bridges with fixed radius such as tone-o-mess and most Floyds do? 16"?
You like Suhr and seem to think they´re the only company that builds guitars the way they should be, we get it.. but spewing BS like this about how no other manufacturer takes the effort to fret their necks properly is just that, spewing BS.... When was the last time you visited the Jackson or Warmoth factory and witnessed fretting first hand?
Once again companies are accused of skimping on the part of the process that takes the least time and effort to do correctly vs incorrectly, and has the most long term impact of all the corners that could be cut. In other words the last place any sane person would cut corners. :smack:
If you still think otherwise. you´re gladly invited to inspect all of my Jacksons. They all have untouched original frets, most of them also have CR boards, and if you can find a loose or iimproperly seated fret on ANY you can have one of them for free, no joke.
In the days of the fretbender (so post 1986), you can pre-radius hundreds of feet of wire in minutes. you can also do hundreds of different radii, one foot each, in minutes. And somewherer in between those extremes lies the pre radiusing of wire to fit every slot on a compound radius. This would assume it is done by hand, in an industrial setting there are much faster ways still..
Does everybody do perfect work all the time? No, of course not... but assuming they regularly do it improperly on purpose (which is what your post does imply when you look at it) is a bit extreme...
Also, measuring the fret height over the fretboard with calipers as opposed to radius guages laid over the top of the fret is an incorrect method of confirming this. There are 2 reasons for this:
1.Even the most perfectly flat fretboard can work slightly when the frets are installed, causing minute vairiances in fretboard radius at that spot.
2. fretwire, while quite uniform, does have minor variances along its length.
Will a more precise planing combined with a wider fret slot (that requires the fret to be glued in as opposed to pressed) minimize this? Yes. But nothing save going fretless can eliminate it.
Some guitars get lucky and come out with absoperfectly uniform fret height. Most guitars aren`t quite so lucky and some less expensive ones even have variances in the range of up to .5mm. But tas long as the fret tops are on the right plane, they will still play just fine.
The entire reason that frets are leveled after installing them is to compensate for these 2 factors. The direct result of the combination of these at the fret level are variances in height from teh fretboard to the top of the frets. The ultimate reason that these variances need to be there is that you play on the top of the frets, and not on the fretboard surface.
Well, if one runs a compound radius of 10-16 on a 25.5" or 25" scale with 24 frets, the bridge should be somewhere around 19 or 20. Floyds IIRC are flat, and a 20" radius isn't that far away from flat, so I don't think that would be too much of an issue.
What brand neck did you measure with calipers and find to be mis-radiused in the middle of the neck?
Floyds are not flat, the closest one gets to being flat from the factory is the 20" radius on some old Ibanez Edges. Schaller and OFR Floyds are generally set to a 10" radius from the factory except for OEM Floyds which are set to whatever the customer orders. The can however be set to flat or even concave through the use of shims.
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